Rathmolyon man's legal challenge to feature on tonight's Primetime

A Rathmolyon man's legal battle, which saw the state being rapped on the knuckles by the UN over its handling of environmental matters, will feature on RTE's Primetime Investigates tonight (Wednesday).

'Between a Rock and a Hard Place' is a report on the system for regulating quarries.
The programme will also look at the case Rathmolyon's Kieran Cummins who took a case against the state to the UN’s Aarhus Convention (Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters), alleging the failure of Ireland to comply with its obligations under the Convention.
The case related to the Keegan Quarry at Trammon, Rathmolyon, and a decision by Meath County Council to extend the licence for the quarry without public consultation.
The Convention’s Compliance Committee found last July, that “by failing to provide opportunities for the public to participate in the decision-making on the 2013 permits to extend the duration of Trammon quarry, the Party concerned (Ireland) has failed to comply with article 6(10) of the Convention.”
The Committee also found that by providing mechanisms through which permits for activities subject to Article 6 of the Convention may be extended for a period of up to five years without any opportunity for the public to participate in the decision to grant the extension, the state failed to comply with article 6(10) of the Convention.
Mr Cummins case was the first take after ratification of the Convention by Ireland and the recent decision is the first on an Irish matter since ratification.
The quarry at Trammon, Rathmolyon had been granted planning permission by Meath County Council in 1998 for a period of 15 years and this was to expire on 5th August 2013. Mr Cummins explains he expected an opportunity to address various issues regarding the quarry through the planning process and he anxiously watched the roadside for notice of a new planning application in 2013 but no such notice appeared.
Later in 2013, when he was looking up and unrelated planning matter, he discovered by chance that there were three applications with the local authority to extend the life of the planning application at the quarry for a further five years. There had not been any public notice of this and he was advised by Meath County Council that the matter was not open to the public for comment.
“As the public were not permitted to put in submissions to the local authority, there was no means of appealing the matter to An Bord Pleanála,” he says.